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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29655273">I'll Miss You, My Trouble</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dan_Francisco/pseuds/Dan_Francisco'>Dan_Francisco</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>RWBY</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Emotional Hurt/No Comfort, Gen, Military Contractor Raven, unresolved mystery</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 22:01:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,166</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29655273</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dan_Francisco/pseuds/Dan_Francisco</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Raven goes missing.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Raven Branwen &amp; Summer Rose</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I'll Miss You, My Trouble</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>One day, Raven Branwen disappeared.</p><p> </p><p>It took a few days for Summer to notice. She wondered about the last time they had spoken to each other, debated whether it had been her turn to unload the dishwasher or Raven’s, and realized she missed the smell of toasted cinnamon that always accompanied Raven’s tea. Saying “morning” to Raven – and Raven’s chronic lack of an answer – had become so ingrained in Summer’s routine that she never noticed until it was too late that Raven wasn’t there to listen. Summer hadn’t quite cottoned on that Raven was <em>gone</em> for good until she looked at the kitchen and saw the only dirty plates and glasses were the ones <em>she</em> had put there.</p><p> </p><p>For a while, Summer figured that Raven had just gone somewhere on one of her “private security” missions. She had once panicked when Raven didn’t come home for a week and a half until Raven returned, promising that one day she’d tell Summer all about it. Raven explained that sometimes her job – only referred to by the nebulous “private security” moniker and nothing else – meant she had to be on-call for long periods of time. Summer had gotten used to Raven sometimes going away, often late at night and always with a rifle over her shoulder and body armor on her chest as she headed stoically out to her car. Part of Summer wished that Raven didn’t have to leave, that she could come home from a long day and see her roommate right there on the couch with a cup of cinnamon-flavored tea in hand and something stupid on the television.</p><p> </p><p>Instead, when Raven made her absence clear, Summer came home to an empty house and little else. She didn’t hear Raven cackling over something absurd Qrow had said. The smell of anise only lingered for a day at the most. Raven never occupied the house with a commanding presence, but the void she left filled every room. Summer was conscious that Raven had left, but knew subconsciously she’d return.</p><p> </p><p>When Summer realized it had been five days since Raven was in the house, she didn’t think anything of it. A longer trip, surely. A job that took a while. Maybe something difficult where Raven would come home bandaged up, smelling like gunpowder and licorice with her hair a mess and pointedly refusing to say anything but the shortest sentences. Summer steered clear of Raven after those days, but made sure to leave cinnamon tea out for her with a slice of lemon for her to drink in the morning.</p><p> </p><p>Summer did exactly that on the sixth day, presuming Raven would have come home during the night and would wake up only a few minutes after she heard the teapot going off. She left for work with the cup resting on the kitchen counter and returned home to see it had not moved. The lemon hadn’t moved and looked fine, but the flesh had dried and the juices it would have provided had been lost to the air. The smell of cinnamon had long faded and the tea, now cold, was undrinkable. Summer chalked it up to guessing wrong, and did the same ritual the next day.</p><p> </p><p>Once again she came home to the same scene.</p><p> </p><p>When the days turned into a week, and that week turned into two, Summer had to confront the idea that Raven would never come home. When she walked into Raven’s room to see if she could find any clues to a sudden disappearance, all she found was reminders of a friendship lost. Her desk was dusty and littered with documents written in German, rags that were pitch-black with dirt as crumpled wrappers lay to the side. Her bed was unmade, clothes lay on the floor unwashed, and the things Raven held precious were the only surfaces that seemed cared for in the entire room. Her closet was filled with the best clothes Raven ever had, including her old dress uniform from her days in the Marine Corps, her leather jacket that she wore whenever the temperature dropped below fifty, the only dress Summer ever remembered seeing her in, and an almost improbable number of boots.</p><p> </p><p>Summer tried to go through her things and find reasons why. The boxes of ammo, maps of foreign countries, and tactical gear provided nothing more than a hint of her life. All Summer could ever know was that Raven would go away with a rifle, shoot it, and then come home without wanting to talk about any of it. Everything in Raven’s room was centered around practicality and function over anything else. If Summer had never seen the way Raven’s eyes lit up when they watched home renovation shows together, she’d have thought war and fighting was the only thing Raven was interested in.</p><p> </p><p>Somehow, Summer was reminded of the few times that Raven had opened up about her life. She said she had joined the Marines on a dare from her brother, and had gotten stuck fifty miles from the training camp on her first weekend she had free. The way she talked about it made Summer want to press for more detail, but she clammed up the rest of the day unless it was something that had a right or wrong answer.</p><p> </p><p>She blinked and returned to Raven’s room. It was like she was still here, in every corner and breathing life into the quite obviously inanimate objects that settled here. Summer looked at everything around her and didn’t see things that belonged to a probably dead woman, but the chronicle of her life on display. Maybe this was a fool’s errand, maybe Raven’s ex-husband Taiyang would be able to tell her something. Give her some hope, maybe. Their conversation was short-lived and amounted to nothing. Taiyang didn’t have a clue where Raven could have gone, and Qrow was unreachable.</p><p> </p><p>As the day began to wane and the sky turned a deep burnt orange, Summer abandoned the idea of trying to derive meaning from what Raven had left behind. She put Raven’s gear, clothes, and maps back in their place, or as best she could. She placed everything so delicately that it felt much like laying things out for a wake. As she closed the door to Raven’s room, Summer felt a lump form in her throat like she was saying goodbye for the last time.</p><p> </p><p>A month later, Qrow came by while she was at work and cleared Raven’s things out in a single afternoon. He only left a single note that said he was sorry he couldn’t stay for dinner. No mention of Raven, no clues to where she had gone, nothing. She never heard a word from Qrow again, and slowly Summer’s routine no longer had her saying good morning, no cups of tea left for her friend, and nobody to even greet her when she came home.</p><p> </p><p>One day Raven Branwen disappeared, and it left a hole in Summer’s life.</p>
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